It is desirable in many applications to be able to identify the constituent elements of a structure. For example, it may be desirable during the training of assembly or maintenance personnel to identify the constituent elements of a structure so that the assembly or maintenance personnel can thereafter have a better appreciation for the appearance and the identity of various elements as well as the manner in which the various elements interact with and are interconnected to other elements of the structure. Additionally, it is also desirable to be able to readily identify the constituent elements of a structure during an inspection of the structure.
As described below, even in an engineered environment in which the elements of a structure are assembled in a predefined manner and in predefined relative locations with respect to the other elements of the structure, it may be difficult to individually identify the constituent elements of a structure. Indeed, in some instances, the elements may be internal to the structure and not visible once the structure has been assembled. Moreover, even in instances in which the elements are visible, an individual may not recognize the elements simply by their appearance. For example, an aircraft has a large number of constituent elements, many of which are not visible once the aircraft has been assembled and the sheer number of which make it challenging for an individual to even identify all of those elements that are visible following assembly of the aircraft.
In an effort to facilitate the identification of the constituent elements of a structure, personnel could be trained to identify the elements, such as by means of their review of drawings or other images of the elements, based upon the visual appearance of the elements and the location of the elements relative to other constituent elements of the structure. Although such training may to some degree be effective, this training is typically quite time-intensive and may still be somewhat limited as the appearance of an element of an assembled structure may still prove to be somewhat difficult for a trainee to identify in comparison to the drawings and images of the structures that are utilized for training purposes.
Instead or additionally, the various elements of a structure could be identified in some manner, such as by means of color coding or by labeling the elements, either with human-readable labels or other markings or with bar-codes, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags or the like. While the color coding of the constituent elements of a structure may have some use for structures having a limited number of elements, such as in instances in which wiring or fluid/gas tubes are to be identified, color coding is typically too limited in the practical variety of colors and may be further limited by changes in the color of an element over time or once the element is subject to wear so as to fail to provide adequate discrimination between the plurality of elements that may comprise a particular structure. In terms of the identification of individual elements of a structure by means of labels, the labels may provide some assistance, although the identification of the various elements may be somewhat limited by the size and shape of the elements and issues relating to the occlusion and corresponding limitations on the readability of the labels in instances in which the elements of an assembled structure are at least partially hidden from view. Additionally, the application of labels to the elements of a structure adds at least some expense and weight to the structure and, at least with respect to RFID or other proximity-based identification techniques, difficulties may arise in instances in which the RFID tags for two or more elements are positioned close to one another since efforts to read any one RFID tag may result in some confusion as a result of responses from two or more RFID tags associated with nearby elements of the structure.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved technique for identifying the constituent elements of a structure and, in some instances, to provide various types of information relating to the identified element(s) of the structure, thereby facilitating training of personnel, be it for assembly, maintenance, inspection or other purposes.